business

Wisconsin state officials visited three La Crosse-area businesses Monday pushing Gov. Jim Doyle's "clean energy jobs" bill.

The proposal calls upon the state to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025.

Public Service Commission Chairman Eric Callisto, PSC Commissioner Mark Meyer and Commerce Secretary Dick Leinenkugel visited City Brewery, Gundersen Lutheran and Honda Motorwerks.

"We spend $16 billion here in Wisconsin that leaves the state because we do not have oil, we don't have natural gas, we don't have coal," Leinenkugel said at the dealership. "So every dollar that leaves this state doesn't get reinvested back in businesses."

Callisto emphasized parts of the bill: energy efficiency, renewable energy and lifting the moratorium on constructing new nuclear power plants. He said Wisconsin now gets about 5 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

La Crosse Tribune

The alternative-energy business is poised to add thousands of new jobs if Washington policy-makers broaden government support programs, lobbyists for the industry said Tuesday.

Rhone Resch, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, called for a federal renewable-energy standard that would require power generators to use cleaner forms of electricity.

About half of U.S. states already have such regulations, but no standard yet exists on the federal level. "We're in the first few snowflakes of a blizzard of jobs that could be created," Resch said in a joint press conference set up by lobbyists.

The solar industry could double in 2010 if the 14 utility-scale projects that have been permitted move ahead as planned and create 20,000 jobs, he added.

The lobbyists said the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act helped the industry grow in 2009 with stimulus money.

The wind industry, for instance, has grown in wind-turbine installation but needs to beef up manufacturing jobs. "We're ready to rock and roll," said Denise Bode, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association.

MarketWatch